Pathfinder camp in Germany draws about 800 young people with an Esther theme

About 800 young people from 31 local groups pitched their tents at Luhmühlen, near Lüneburg in Lower Saxony, from May 13 to 17, 2026. It was the Pathfinder camp in Germany that has become a tradition over the Ascension Day holiday: the HiLa, short for Himmelfahrtslager. The story was covered by the German Adventist Press Service (APD) and republished in English by the Inter-European Division (EUD) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The host was CPA Nord, which brings together the Adventist Pathfinders of five northern German states. This edition also included a baptism and a farewell to the pastor who had led these camps since 2014.

📰What happened at the 2026 Pathfinder camp in Germany?

According to APD, the camp ran from Wednesday, May 13, to Sunday, May 17, 2026. The official calendar of Adventjugend Nord (Advent Youth North), in a version dated November 2025, already listed “HILA Nord” at Luhmühlen on those dates.

The spiritual program took place in a large main tent. Outside it, each group kept its own routine, from the campfire to the kitchen. APD reports about 800 young people from 31 local groups, and the Inter-European Division's version gives the same figures.

🇩🇪Who are the Adventist Pathfinders of northern Germany behind the HiLa?

The camp was put together by CPA Nord, the Pathfinder branch of Adventjugend Nord. According to APD, this is the youth association of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in five states near the coast: Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In its English version of the story, the Inter-European Division simply calls these groups Pathfinders. Their German name, Pfadfinder (literally “path finder”), and the history of the movement in the country are covered in the article on Pathfinders and Adventism in Germany.

In the report, groups are counted by the Stamm (plural Stämme), the local group that the EUD rendered as “club”. The scale shows how much weight the HiLa carries: the national Adventjugend website lists 180 local CPA groups across Germany, so the 31 gathered at Luhmühlen make up about one sixth of them, by our count.

👑What did the Esther camp theme teach German Pathfinders?

The title chosen was “Ester: Du bist nicht allein”, which the EUD's English report renders as “You Are Not Alone”. The Bible book follows a young Jewish woman, an orphan raised by her cousin Mordecai, who becomes queen at the court of King Ahasuerus, identified with the Persian Xerxes I, and risks her life to save her people from a decree of extermination. The whole story is told in the guide to Queen Esther and courage for such a time as this.

The preacher was Pastor Dennis Safonow, from Salzgitter. APD records one point he stressed: the name of God never appears in the book, and yet His hand can be seen in the events. In the tent meetings, Safonow tied the plot to situations children and teenagers know well, such as feeling insecure, being rejected for “being different” and going through loneliness. The application was practical: stand up for others and trust God while doing it.

Before each message, a skit acted out a passage from the book, in a dramatic tone with a few touches of humor. It is an easy idea to bring to your own club: a scene rehearsed by one Unit gets the group ready for the reflection.

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🔥What Pathfinder camp activities filled the program?

According to APD, the program mixed campfires in each group, times of singing together, creative workshops and Geländespiele, the wide games (outdoor terrain games) planned for each age group.

Each group took care of its own meals, and some groups invited their camp neighbors over to share the food. If your club wants to build that kind of independence, the guide to camp cooking covers techniques and safety precautions.

💧What were the highlights of the 2026 edition?

Among the high points, APD singles out the baptism of a young adult Pathfinder whose name was not released. According to the agency, she serves as a helper (Helferin) in a local group; the EUD's English version says she is “actively involved as a counselor in a local club”. In both, she is someone who was already serving in leadership. If this step is in your plans, read about how to know if you are ready for baptism.

The edition also marked a farewell. Pastor Alexander Vilem, director of Adventjugend Nord, was due to leave the post in the European summer to take on another role, which APD did not specify. He had led the Ascension Day camps since 2014, when the event belonged to the CPA of Lower Saxony and Bremen; after those associations merged with the ones in the other coastal states to form Adventjugend Nord, he stayed at the head of the larger gathering. In the photo released by the agency, the farewell is led by the national leader of the Adventjugend, Ruben Grieco.

🗓️Why is the camp held over Ascension Day in Germany?

HiLa comes from Himmelfahrtslager, “Ascension camp”. In Germany, Ascension Day falls on the Thursday 39 days after Easter Sunday and is a public holiday in all 16 states. In 2026 it fell on May 14, and the Wednesday to Sunday camp made the most of the long weekend.

The 2026 edition matched the scale of the one before: in 2025, according to APD, the HiLa also drew about 800 participants from 31 groups to Luhmühlen. The agency notes that other youth and Pathfinder camps take place around Germany at Ascension, Pentecost and Corpus Christi, such as the Connected youth festival, May 22 to 25, 2026, in the same Friedensau that hosted the Inter-European Division camporee in 2023.

Source: APD, June 5, 2025, and May 18, 2026 (2025 theme translated from German; 2026 theme as worded in the EUD English report).